our colorado trip

I'm not at home so I don't have any photo editing software, but I'm not too impressed with the very few photos that I took while we were in Colorado, so I decided to go ahead and upload them and post some as is.  Oh well...

Tuesday morning we flew to Denver.  I was a little worried about how it would go with Ryann, since the last time we flew she was much younger and sleeping a lot.  She was surprisingly a dream.  She was awake through most of the flight, but happy, and fell asleep without a fuss about 35 minutes before we landed.  There was a four year old little girl in front of us who played with Ryann for a while.  It was pretty cute, she was sticking her fingers back through the seat and showing us one of her FurReal? pets.  Ryann really enjoyed it.  Unfortunately she was awake for the hour drive to Loveland, but she did alright.

We stopped at Chili's for lunch, and then headed to my Aunt's house.  We hung around for a little bit before Chris and I drove back to Denver for a pre-interview dinner.  The directions to this dinner (obviously I changed a bit, thought it was kind of rude to pass out someone's info)... well...  "You'll find a large green gate underneath the large awning labeled "Apartment Complex" that faces Wyandot Street. To unlock the gate use the doorknob's 5-number punch key: press # and # together, followed  by #.  Walk into the courtyard and turn around 180 degrees to walk up the stairs to my door, unit ##."  Sounds a little like "Ok mam you're gonna go to the Texaco station.  Take a right. Go 5 and a half miles southeast.  You're gonna see a guy in a yellow poncho.  His name is Hank.  He'll take you to the whopper Lair. That's where you go."  Dane Cook anyone?  No?  Ok.
 
The dinner was nice.  A little awkward because I am extremely bad at small talk, but we had a good time.  It was good to talk to some people who are going through what will be doing in the near future.

Wednesday we spent a lot of time just hanging out at my aunt's house while Chris was at his interview.  When he came back my mom and I hit up the Carter's outlet and Target.  Target has some seriously cute little girl clothes right now!  Lets just say that I can no longer say Ryann has no clothes in the next size up.  My cousin Stacie and her daughter Tatum stopped by to hang out.  Tatum is so sweet with Ryann.

On Thursday we did some more bumming around the house.  My uncle had to babysit Tatum, and my cousin Jamie's son, Gavin, so we stopped over there for a bit to play.  Ryann got absurdly excited when she saw Gavin.  Like hyperventilating and flapping her arms excited.  Gavin wasn't sure what to make of her.  It was hilarious.  Gavin was pretty funny himself... when I got out my camera to takes some pictures, he instantly spotted me from across the room and started yelling 'cheese!'.  So cute.

this is the good luck getting me dressed face

 practicing her standing skills with Grammy... this girl is getting brave and starting to let go of things to try and balance!  exciting stuff but it scares the crap out of me.

Ryann, Tatum and Gavin

Thursday night Chris and I went to another pre-interview dinner.  This one, well, it didn't go quite as well.  Don't get me wrong, everyone was nice enough.  But no one was particularly chatty, and the host cooked North African food.  If you like that kind of thing, well great.  But for a large group of people you don't know?  I would suggest maybe something that is slightly more of a general crowd pleaser.  Whatever.  The whole thing was all sorts of awkward.  But there was a couple there with a two week old baby that I stared at, so it made it a little better.

Apparently while we were gone, Jamie, Gabe (her husband) and Gavin came over to play.  At some point they decided to give Gavin a bath, went in, shut the door and started the water.  My mom said Ryann crawled outside the door, could hear the water, and started freaking out because she wanted a bath too.  So... Ryann had her first coed bath :o).  That girl and her baths man, she would probably take 4 a day if we let her. 

On Friday Chris had another interview, so the girls went to the Flat Irons mall to do some shopping.  Ryann did such a great job.  We left the house at 9:30 and she slept the entire hour drive there.  Then after about three hours of shopping and only a tiny meltdown, my mom got her to go to sleep.  She took a 90 minute nap curled up in the stroller while we continued to shop.  She woke up in time to head home.  Friday evening my cousins and their kids came over to my aunt's house for dinner and to hang out.  It was great seeing everyone, and so fun to see Ryann play with the kids.

 curled up in her stroller at the mall

 Saturday we flew home.  Ryann slept the hour drive to the airport, and was then awake for the whole plane ride.  I wouldn't say she was quite as happy this time, but there were no real screaming fits or anything, so I'll call it a success.  She made friends with the lady behind us and played with the screw holes on the armrest.  Whatever works.  When we started the drive back to our house Ryann really wanted to fall asleep, but we knew she would wake up when we got home, and we wanted her to have a good nap.  So I struggled to keep her awake and happy for the 35 minutes it took to get there.  I manged, but she was definitely slap happy by the time we got home, and uh, covered in shredded magazine pages.  Just trying to keep her happy!

hanging out in the Denver airport

When we got her out of the carseat we decided to let her crawl around for a bit before making her take a nap.  She was pointing at everything as if to say "Hey!  I remember this!  And this is my toy, and those are my cats, and my ball pit and hey!  Those are my toys, and that is my tunnel...".  Super cute. She was obviously happy to be home.

When we finally put her down for a nap, she slept for THREE HOURS.  And she only woke up because I started banging around in the kitchen because I was worried if I let her sleep much longer she would wake up at like 9pm wanting to be up for 3 hours.  That wasn't going to work for me.

Yesterday she took another three hour nap, and again we woke her at 6:30pm because we wanted her to go to bed at a reasonable time.  I guess we will see if it keeps happening... a little strange that my child who used to barley sleep 30 minutes is rocking two to three hour naps (plus an hour morning nap!), but I suppose we wore her out this week.